Painkillers are about to get safer

PARACETAMOL (acetaminophen) is an effective painkiller but a risky one, making it the leading cause of acute liver damage in the US. Now there are two ways it could get a whole lot safer. A US Food and Drug Administration panel wants to slash the recommended dosage. And a safer alternative can be made cheaply for the first time.

When used as directed paracetamol is safe, but it doesn't take much more than the recommended dose to cause permanent, possibly fatal, liver damage. Among over-the-counter drugs, "it probably has the smallest difference between how much it takes to be effective and how much it takes to cause damage", says Sidney Wolfe of the watchdog group Public Citizen in Washington DC. Because paracetamol is an ingredient of numerous preparations, from cold medicines to prescription narcotics such as Vicodin, it's easy to double-dose by mistake.

Last month the FDA's advisory ...

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